


Because

by andeemae



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Alternate Universe, Detectives, F/M, Lawyers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:54:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28286568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andeemae/pseuds/andeemae
Summary: Detective Hawthorne and ADA Undersee’s evolving relationship.
Relationships: Gale Hawthorne/Madge Undersee
Comments: 2
Kudos: 49





	1. Because

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

Gale can see the blonde head of the ADA through the doorway to her office.

Madge is leaning over her desk, reading through a report and scribbling down notes, biting her lip as she does. Every now and then she stops stretches her arms up or pops her neck before returning to her uncomfortable slouch.

For a minute he watches her, enjoying her soft expressions as she reads, makes faces at what must be particularly unpleasant parts before reverting back to a slight frown. When she suddenly looks up he feels his face warm at being caught staring. He hoists a cup of coffee up and walks through the doorframe and into her cramped little office, which had probably been a closet at one point.

"Thought you might be burning the midnight oil."

Gale sets the hot cup on the desk in front of her.

Madge eyes it for a minute, and her frown deepens. When she doesn't reach for it, Gale slumps into the hard wooden chair in front of the desk, reaches out and pushes the cup a little closer to her hand.

"I didn't poison it."

She doesn't look entirely convinced, and he can understand why. He hadn't exactly been the nicest to her.

When she'd first walked into the station, in her pretty little suit and her expensive shoes, he hadn't thought much of her. Just one more ADA they'd break in that would bolt to a better position when the opportunity came.

After their first case, the suspicious death of a young girl named Rue, whose family had upset a local crime boss, though, she'd earned some respect from him. Madge had gone after the man, who'd used a young boy to do his dirty work, fiercely. Not only had she gotten the conviction on the man and the murderous boy, she'd also pieced it to several cold cases, some going back decades.

Now, several years out, she was still with them, and along with the District Attorney and the help of dozens of other ADAs, she was building one of the biggest RICO cases that had ever been seen.

It was a dangerous undertaking. Coriolanus Snow, a former government official, who was both well connected and inexplicably well funded, was at the center of the case. He was a law unto himself, connected to money laundering, gambling, extortion, as well as human and drug trafficking. There was nothing he wouldn't do, up to and including killing anyone who got too close to exposing his operation.

In the past few years, while the case had been in its infancy, several detectives and ADAs had disappeared, vanished from the face of the earth.

Some had turned up dead, sometimes days, weeks, or in a few cases, years later, but most were simply lost to Snow.

Madge wasn't the biggest name in the tangle against Snow, not anymore than Gale's was, but she was definitely one of the hardest fighters against him.

Her father, a councilman, had been killed, rather suspiciously, after blocking one of Snow's proposals. Her mother had died of an overdose, with drugs no doubt supplied by Snow as well.

Gale had people waiting on him at home who'd notice if he never arrived. He had Katniss watching his back, when she wasn't busy being schmoozed by that dope Mellark from the Feds.

Madge is alone in the world.

She could get snatched right off the street and no one would probably notice for days. A thought that doesn't sit well with Gale.

Finally, after a long minute of determining if the coffee offering is safe, Madge takes it and slowly sips a tiny bit out. She smiles. "Carmel Macchiato, thank you, Detective."

He thinks it's a bit of a stupid drink, coffee should be black and bitter, but he knows it's her favorite, so he'd swallowed his pride and ordered the stupid thing.

"You about done for the night?"

Her nose wrinkles and she sighs, rubbing her delicate fingers over her eyes, "No. I want to get a few more of these witness statements done."

Gale nods and tries to get himself more comfortable in the chair. She watches him for a minute and he shrugs, "I'm just getting comfortable."

"Why?" Her mouth turns down and her eyebrows knit together.

He make a face, grunts, "Because the security guards here are a joke and you don't need to walk out by yourself."

Madge gives him a small smile, "You don't have to."

"No." But he needs to.

Because he doesn't want her to be the next missing person on the news he sees.

#######

Every chance he gets, no matter how late he leaves the station, he goes by her office. If the coffee shop is still open he picks up her sickeningly frou-frou drink. When it's not too late they call for take-out, sometimes Chinese, sometimes pizza, or the deli down the block. Occasionally Gale cooks them something, though she's a little suspicious of his abilities at the beginning.

At first he walks her to the subway, then he starts calling her a cab, but after an attempt is made on Chief Paylor's life he insists on driving her home himself.

The first time he sees her apartment building, ancient building that doesn't even have a buzzer or a doorman, something he'd expected from her, he's a little appalled.

"Anyone could just waltz up and get to your apartment," he grumbles.

"Does yourapartment have a doorman or a buzzer, Detective?" She asks, eyebrows arched and mouth in small smirk.

It doesn't, but he has a gun and he knows how to use it. Maybe Madge needs a gun…

"No, I don't," she huffs. "I'm more likely to shoot myself. I'd be terrified."

He wants to come up, make sure her locks are in good order and that her fire escape isn't putting her at risk, but he decides she probably isn't in the mood for his 'insanity' as she puts it, or she might get the wrong idea.

"Thanks for the ride," she finally says, after a few minutes. It's freezing out and she keeps eyeing the snow flurries swirling in front of the windshield warily, working herself up to get out of the car and into the cold.

She has the sleeves of her coat pulled down over her hands, she'd lost her gloves at the beginning of winter and had been insistent that she didn't need to buy more, her old ones would turn up. Gale can see the ends of her nail, a little chipped, poking out.

His hand itches to reach out grab her frozen fingers and warm them in his palms, but instead he grips the steering wheel tighter.

"No problem."

Her lip puckers and Gale can see her chewing her tongue, "You don't have to."

No, he doesn't, but he needsto.

Because he doesn't want her to be another obituary for him to read in the early edition.

#######

As the trial date looms closer, witnesses are taken into protective custody.

Gale takes it as his unofficial duty to keep an eye on Madge.

Katniss comments that Gale sees Madge more than she sees Peeta, and she and Peeta are actually dating.

When the trial starts and some of the dirtiest detail come out, fingers are pointed, and long kept secrets are exposed, Gale finds Madge sitting in her little office, just as he always had. Instead of poring over documents and making notes though, she's just staring blankly at her desk. Her hands are fidgeting with a pen.

He knocks gently on the door, "Can I come in?"

She squints up at him, lost in thought, before she nods.

Closing the door, he lowers himself into his usual spot, in the hard chair across from hers, he leans forward with his elbows to the scuffed wood of her desk.

Without thinking, Gale reaches across the table and takes the pen from her before wrapping his fingers around hers.

He looks up, watches her eyes as they continue to stare down at their hands. Squeezing them, he gives her a small frown, "What's wrong?"

At first she looks like she's going to say 'nothing', which he knows is bullshit, but then she shakes her head and sighs.

"I just wish we could've been a little faster."

Gale's calloused thumbs rub over smooth knuckles. "You did everything you could as fast as you could."

She frowns deeper, he can feel her tense, "But…" She sighs again, "I guess I wish someone had been able to do all this earlier. So many of these lives," her eyes flicker to a stack of papers, "wouldn't have been ruined. So many families would still be together, Gale"

Including hers.

Tears begin forming in her eyes, she blinks rapidly to try and fight them off. It only serves to make them fall more quickly, and after a few seconds, fat tears roll down her cheeks, dripping down and onto her blouse.

Gale quickly gets around the desk, squeezing between it and the wall, before crouching down and cupping her face. He shushes her as his thumbs brush across her cheeks and smear droplets on her face. Little blubbering noises and hiccoughs softly make their way out of her.

"A lot of people wish that." Including him. If someone had taken the initiative, battled as hard as Madge and the others had sooner, then maybe his father, another of Snow's collateral damage, would still be alive. "But we're saving people in the future. That's all we can do."

Madge nods, swallows thickly.

Her eyes are a little puffy and red, she's put some kind of concealer under them, probably having sleepless nights over all the things that could go wrong with the trial. Part of her hair, normally a tight bun, is down, as if she'd tugged on it in frustration.

She's disheveled and sloppy, but Gale thinks she looks as pretty as ever.

As she tries to reach past him, snatch some tissue from the edge of her desk, Gale leans over, catches her lips with his.

It only lasts a second, just long enough for him to taste her stupid caramel drink, but he memorizes every aspect of it, just in case he doesn't get another chance.

Her lips are soft, taste like the strawberry chapstick she's constantly using and her silly drink. He can smell her body wash, something with raspberries and her hair still has the clean scent of her shampoo clinging to it. His rough hands memorize her skin, the curve of her cheeks and jaw, though they tingle to tug at the material of her jacket, feel her waist, hips, the smooth material of her skirt…

Wide blue eyes stare at him, a little dumbfounded. Her breath comes out in little puffs, pants, that breeze past him, warm and sweet.

Finally, her eyes drop, "You didn't have to kiss me."

He leans in and presses his chapped lips to her soft ones again, savors them a little longer. A little shock shoots up his back when she starts kissing back.

No, he didn't have to kiss her, but he wanted to.

Because they deserve to not have their lives ruined by that monster again.


	2. Safe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine. Any lines from the books are hers too.

Gale parks his car and sighs, sending a puff of air into the warm night air.

"This is your apartment?" Madge asks, leaning forward and squinting up into the dull light from the security lamp.

It isn't exactly impressive, ancient and rough looking, but the area around it is fairly well lit and the crime rate is lower than where her crappy apartment is located, so he thinks as far as living arrangements go, he's ahead.

She needs to be safe, and as far as he's concerned, the only safe place is with him.

He wouldn't have brought her here if it hadn't been for the second shooting.

It had only been a few hours ago, just after lunch. He'd been with Katniss, picking up lunch at the crappy deli down from the station house, when they'd gotten the call.

"Abernathy's been shot," Chief Paylor told them. "Guy walked right up to the DA's office and opened fire as he was leaving for lunch."

"How bad is it?" Gale asked, tossing the greasy meatball subs into the back of the car before buckling in and urging Katniss to just 'drive already' and he would 'tell her in a minute'.

Something wasn't right and he wanted to get moving, he had a feeling they were about to head to the hospital, either because DA Abernathy was the newest victim of Snow's violent fall from grace, killed as a warning to all those finally fighting back, or because their beloved DA hadn't been killed, but pissed off the hospital staff and they needed to cart his ass to jail.

He didn't expect what he got next.

"He's a stubborn bastard," Paylor muttered, the sound of her sigh mixed with the dinging of her car as she apparently got in. "I'm going down to the hospital to get a better picture of what's going on." She waited a beat, apparently preparing herself for what she had to say next, before letting out a long breath. "ADA Undersee was with him at the time."

Gale's heart had stopped so quickly that a sharp pain cut across his chest, stalling his breath and blurring his vision.

"What?"

It wasn't that he and Madge had advertised their fledgling relationship, but Paylor had noticed that he had warmed up to her and felt he needed a warning about whatever awful thing had happened.

Trying to keep his voice from shaking, if Madge had been killed he didn't know what he'd do, go after whichever of Snow's lackey's did this probably, Gale took a breath and waited for the news.

"She was walking with Abernathy, going to a meeting apparently. Working on that internal affairs case against Precinct Two," she began carefully and Gale nodded to himself preparing for the worst.

Precinct Two was full of dirty cops.

Chief Brutus, Madge had told Gale, was among the extensive list of names being investigated as being in Snow's pocket, helping him cover up all the murders and drug rings he had his fingers in.

At least half the detectives were on paid leave pending the findings of the investigation.

"Detectives Clove and Cato weren't happy," she'd told him and Katniss when she'd swung by to drop off some paperwork to them just a few days prior. "But what did they expect was going to happen? There've been more suspicious deaths of suspects in custody in that station house than in all the others combined."

Gale hadn't really cared if Cato or Clove were upset by the supposed slight against them, which was probably the truth if he were being completely honest. He only cared that Madge stay away from that station. It was tight-knit and even the clean cops, if there were any, weren't going to take kindly to having their entire department cast in a bad light.

Plus, Cato was a grade A asshole. He'd been hitting on Madge since the second she'd started working for the DA. Any excuse to keep him away from her for even a few months, or more if Gale were lucky, was entirely welcome.

"The gunman was aiming for Abernathy only, though. From what I've been told, she's shaken up, but okay," Paylor finished, her voice distant to Gale's ears.

"She's okay?" Gale repeated. "She wasn't hit?"

Paylor sighed. "That's what I said."

"We'll head to the hospital," he told her, hanging up before she could tell him to go to the DA's office and start taking statements or looking for evidence.

He'd do that, catching the bastard that put Madge in danger was high on his list of things to do, but getting to the hospital and checking on her took priority.

"Hospital. Now."

Katniss hadn't asked questions, just nodded before taking off.

They broke a few traffic laws, Gale is certain of that. They'd forgotten to turn on the lights until they were halfway to the hospital and the siren had died, something it had been threatening to do for a while now, so they looked like a couple of assholes in a Crown Vic speeding for the sake of speeding, but Gale didn't care.

He'd run into the emergency room, yelled at a girl at registration, flashing his badge and telling her to give him Abernathy's location or he'd arrest her for some bullshit charge, scaring her to tears and making her directions incomprehensible.

"You have such a way with ladies," a gentle chuckle had come from behind him.

Mellark, Katniss' asshole boyfriend from the FBI, had handed the girl a cup of coffee.

Of course he would be there. He'd probably been going to the meeting with Madge and Abernathy. Helping them with higher level government crap, or so Katniss would claim.

"Don't worry, miss. I'll take Detective Hawthorne to DA Abernathy's room," he told her, smiling warmly before giving Gale a not-so-gentle shove away from the desk. "And he apologizes for yelling."

Gale did not apologize, but nodded anyway.

"You know," he began before Gale could begin interrogating him, "not everyone is a suspect you need to rough up to get information out of. A 'please' and a 'thank you' will take you miles in life."

Gale had shot him a nasty look, striding a little faster in the direction Mellark was taking him. "She's an idiot. It was a simple question."

"Right," Mellark sighed.

"Is Madge okay?" Gale asked, not even slowing his pace.

Mellark didn't answer for a minute, then pointed to a waiting room to the right. "She's frazzled, but okay."

Gale's eyes instantly fell on Madge.

She was wearing one of her simple little white blouses, only it wasn't white anymore. There was ruby and crimson, mixed sickeningly across the front, smeared and splattered. Little flecks smattered on her unnaturally pale cheeks and in her flyaway hair, making her look like an extra in a horror film.

Even her dark skirt was stained, dark patches just barely visible in the afternoon sun that filtered through the windows of the waiting room.

She didn't notice him for a few seconds, her wide eyes focused on the cracking vinyl of one of the chairs, wholly absorbed in breathing.

"Madge," he barely managed to rasp out, relief and terror finally stealing his normally strong voice.

Her eyes blinked, looked up hazily, then settled on him.

Before he could even take a step, Madge had stood and raced across the room, lunging at him.

Despite the fact that she was probably smearing Abernathy's blood all over him, ruining one of his nicer shirts, Gale held her, wrapping his arms around her and pressing her to him, reassuring himself that she's was alive and unharmed.

He soaked in her warmth, her breath, her smell, the feeling of her tears as they soaked through his shirt and the way her fingers dug into his back. She was alive and he had no intention of letting that change, ever.

He was going to keep her safe.

They stayed at the hospital for hours, waiting for Abernathy to get out of surgery.

He'd lost a lot of blood, mostly on Madge's shirt, if Gale were to guess, and when they rolled him into his room he had blood infusing.

"I'm too much of a bastard for Snow to kill," he mumbled sleepily, as Mellark and Madge looked him over, assuring themselves he was indeed okay.

Gale and Katniss barely managed to hide their laughter at that.

"That's was probably true." Chief Paylor told him. "You'll live forever out of sheer stubbornness."

She'd left shortly after, complaining that she needed to go do the work her two best detectives were neglecting. Gale would've felt bad, but he could sense the tease in her words. She'd give them hell for hanging up on her later, but for tonight, they were off the hook.

"That's not funny," Madge had told him, tears trickling down her cheeks, dripping off the edge of her freshly scrubbed cheeks.

A detail of cops, plain clothes and uniforms, were assigned to watch him, keep Snow's people from coming back and finishing the job, but that wasn't good enough, not for Madge anyway. Everyone was suspect.

"I'll stay with him tonight," Mellark had told Madge when she'd insisted that she was going to stay with him. "You need a shower and a few hours of sleep."

"I'm not going to sleep," she'd muttered, rubbing her pink and red eyes. "I don't think I'll sleep ever again."

Katniss huffed. "Peeta's right. Go home, shower and get some rest. We'll stay with Abernathy."

Finally, when midnight finally hit and the nurse was hanging something, plasma Gale thinks it was, he finally convinces Madge to go home.

"I'll drive you to my place, it's closer, you can get cleaned up and a few hours of sleep, then we'll come back, okay?"

Now that he has her in front of his apartment building, the flaws in his plan are starting to show.

She has no clothes, even if she takes a shower, she'll have nothing to change into.

Thankfully, she's too exhausted to point this out, if she's even realized it yet, and she wearily gets out of the car.

Crossing his fingers that none of his neighbors comes out, they'll think he was involved in a murder by the looks of Madge's clothes, he guides her with a gentle hand at the small part of her back up to the entrance and down the hall.

They go up the stairs, to the small landing at the front of his hall on the fourth floor, then to the end.

He fishes out his keys quickly and throws the door open, flipping on the lights. "Home sweet home."

It's clean, mostly because he doesn't waste his money on crap like pictures and knick-knacks like she does. There's a couch, worn in and threadbare, but comfortable, a battered coffee table with cup rings covering every inch of wood, something his mother complains about everytime she sees it, and a secondhand television.

Spartan living at its finest.

Madge walks in, looking small and broken, her exhausted looking eyes tracing over every inch before settling back on him.

"I guess I should take a shower before I get blood on anything," she says tonelessly.

Nodding, Gale takes her hand and leads her into the bedroom.

He wishes, a little stupidly, that this weren't the way she had to see his bedroom for the first time. He'd had grand visions of a date, kissing and laughing, preceding their first venture into his bedroom.

Life had other plans though, and Gale isn't happy about that. He doesn't want his bedroom associated with blood and misery, by anyone, but least of all Madge.

It's just as bare as his living room, bed with a crappy dark colored comforter and a couple of flat pillows, a dresser in the corner, and a bedside table with a broken alarm clock on it.

Madge doesn't seem to care, just eyes the bed for a moment before looking down at her blood soaked clothes. Her cheeks darken to a faint crimson as she seems to realize the clothing situation.

"What am I going to wear?"

Gale goes to the dresser and pulls out a pair of pajama pants. Of course they're the horrible one's Rory had bought him for Christmas a few years ago with the Grinch on them.

Ignoring the embarrassment that suddenly floods his system-why hadn't he grabbed one of his normal, non-cartoon character pants?-Gale snatches up a dark undershirt and takes them to her.

"Wear this to sleep in. I'll take your stuff to the wash downstairs."

She keeps her eyes down as she takes the clothes, nodding silently.

Going into the bathroom, Gale starts the shower, which is a menace for him half the time, while Madge watches quietly.

When he gets it to a decent temperature, he steps back and waits.

The crimson on Madge's cheeks seeps down her neck and to her chest as she bites her lip.

"Can you step out?" She asks softly.

Blinking, he hadn't even realized he was keeping her from getting in, Gale coughs, looking down and feeling like an idiot.

"Oh, yeah." He steps past her, pulling a towel and washcloth from under the sink and handing it to her. "Just toss your clothes out the door and I'll take them down and get them started."

She doesn't argue, just nods, closing the door behind him.

He tries not to listen, but his hearing has always been almost freakishly good.

He can hear the zipper on her skirt, the sound of fabric hitting the tile, the painfully familiar sound of a bra latch, then the click of the door.

"Here," she calls out, holding her bloody clothes to him.

Trying not to look, Gale snatches them from her and rushes out of the room. He doesn't know if he can handle the sound of her washing up. His body is already having pleasantly unpleasant reactions to what he's heard so far and the warmth of her body still clinging to her clothes isn't helping.

He spends an hour downstairs, but even his mother's expertise with laundry can't save Madge's blouse. Abernathy's blood is too deeply soaked to it, a strange pink is set across the front, forever.

Her bra is a loss too, which is a pity, it's lacey and soft, a push up that he'd have loved to see in action, but the skirt is salvageable, the dark color making the faint stain almost vanish. He'll ask his mother about it in the morning, maybe she has a trick she's kept from him.

There's no panties, but Gale decides not to ask about that. She probably just kept them to save herself from wearing his weird pajamas commando.

When he gets back in the room, Madge is on the couch, curled up with her head against one of the worn out pillows staring at his television.

The news is on, Abernathy's shooting is getting the full treatment.

There are reporters talking to everyone who'd seen, a man that had been walking his dog, a couple of kids that had been skipping school apparently, and half a dozen others. Experts and lawyers are yammering away, saying this was retaliation, which Gale almost snorts at. He hopes these idiots aren't getting paid too much to point out the obvious.

"I couldn't get your shirt clean," he tells her, holding it out and stepping between her and the television. She doesn't need to immerse herself in it anymore. She'll never get to sleep.

She nods, setting up and placing it in her lap, running her fingers over the buttons.

Quietly, Gale drops onto the couch beside her and clicks the television off before taking the clothes back from her and tossing them onto the coffee table and taking her hand.

"It's going to be okay."

It's a lie most likely. He has no way of knowing if Snow will keep trying, and if he's honest, until that bastard is dead, no one is safe, but she doesn't need that right now. She needs hope, even if it's empty.

Tears start to silently stream down her cheeks again and she sniffles, her chin quivering.

"I thought he was going to die, Gale," she says, voice barely above a whisper. "I thought I was watching him die."

Her eyes drop to her hands, no longer tinged pink, the red gone from under her fingernails.

"He was dying, just like my dad."

For a second she stills, frozen in a memory no one should have, watching her dad die again, just like when she'd been a little girl before she shudders and breaks, dry sobs wracking her body.

Gale instantly wraps her in his arms, pulling her to his chest and burying his face in her hair.

It doesn't smell like Madge, not soft and fruity, strawberries and raspberries, sometimes peaches, but clean, what must be her body's own scent hinting through his shampoo and soap.

"He didn't die," he reminds her gently. "He's going to be fine."

"Maybe we're biting off more than we can chew," she sputters wetly. "Maybe-"

"No," Gale cuts her off. "Snow needs to go down. Everyone he's got on his payroll needs to go down. Brutus, Cato, Clove, those idiots over in Precinct One taking kickbacks, all those people he's been using for years to keep this city under his thumb. You and Mellark and Abernathy, you're the good guys. We're winning this fight. He wouldn't've done something so desperate and stupid if we weren't."

It's scary. They've got an animal backed into a corner and it's lashing out, but they're winning, Gale knows it.

Things are going to get worse before they get better, and all he can do is protect her, keep her close and safe.

Madge pulls back, nodding and wiping her face. "I know we have to do this. For my dad and yours, all the people he's killed, but I just-I don't know how many more lives it's going to cost us, and I don't know if I'm strong enough to survive it."

She's a snotty, tear streaked mess, but Gale dips in, pressing a reassuring kiss to her damp lips.

"You're tough. You'll survive."

A weak smile forms on her lips and she sighs.

Her hands, cold and clammy, take Gale's and she leans her forehead against his shoulder.

Kissing the top of her head, Gale pulls her to her feet. "Let's get you some sleep."

She stays rooted on the spot. "I can sleep on the couch."

"Bullshit," he huffs, eyeing the couch suspiciously. "I let Mellark sleep there a few weeks ago with Katniss after we took her out to a bar for her birthday. I probably need to get it deep cleaned."

Or toss it, which is actually a more appealing alternative. He can live with lawn furniture if it means getting rid of whatever nasty reminders the two lovebirds might've left for him in his cushions.

Madge snorts, her swollen eyes crinkling up at the edges as she looks down at the couch.

He stays with her in the bed, just holds her, his fingers combing gently through her hair and his other hand tracing figure eights along the small patch of skin on her lower back where his ratty old shirt rides up.

He can feel her heart beating through her chest to his, slow and steady, her warm breath ghosting over his arms. The heat of her body reassures him she's alive and all the horrible events of the day haven't taken her from him, and when she finally gives in to exhaustion, he presses a kiss to her temple.

When she gets up, he's going to ask her to move in. He'll never sleep again with her so far away, in her unsafe apartment without any means of protecting herself and Snow's vendetta running like wildfire across the city.

They haven't been together, officially, for long, but he can't imagine his life without her.

Closing his eyes, he tries to get some rest.

He'll need all his energy to make this argument with her in the morning.

She needs to be safe.

Maybe he's being dramatic, thinking the only safe place will be with him, but he doesn't care. He'll convince her, even if it's only temporary.

The city needs her, but he needs her more.


	3. Witness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine. Any lines from the books are hers too.
> 
> AN: This chapter has a small mention of human trafficking and child abuse, just to warn everyone.

Gale hates lineups.

They're stupid in his mind, archaic.

Eyewitnesses are fallible. Half the time they're scared panicked people who've been through a traumatic event and are then forced to try to relive it and the other half only had a moment to take notice of the perpetrator and are now being asked to identify someone off a flashbulb memory. It's ridiculous and not the way he wants to get convictions. He wants solid evidence, not partial IDs that some jackass lawyer can get thrown out on a technicality.

Plus, finding five one-eyed women to use as fillers was hard as hell.

Crystalle Otto, herself, had been damn near impossible to track down.

She'd been an heiress to a perfume company, but she'd gambled her family's fortune as well as most of her trust fund completely away within a few years of inheriting it. After that, her whereabouts had been hard to determine, but from what Gale and Katniss had managed to find out, she'd fallen in with a rough crowd.

Her rap sheet was long and impressive. Despite growing up in luxury, Crystalle had taken to her new, violent lifestyle without difficulty.

She'd served time for armed robbery, assault and battery, and possession, not what anyone would expect from a girl who'd been given everything on a silver platter since the day she was born. All her hard living had cost her an eye, her looks, and any friends in high places she might've still had.

They hadn't been able to find the connection between her and Snow yet, but they knew there had to be one.

"Who else would want to kill Haymitch?" Madge had asked, looking truly puzzled by the thought.

Gale almost told her that the list of people that would like to kill her beloved boss would fill several volumes. Abernathy's ex-girlfriends alone had kept the investigation busy for several weeks. He kept that thought to himself though. She adored the jerk, and Gale didn't want to hear an hour long speech about how great he'd always been to her.

"If we don't have her come in and make an ID the defense will say we didn't have confidence in our witness," Madge points out.

"And if she doesn't ID her then they'll use that to prove we got the wrong person," Gale grumbles.

He hates lawyers and all their judicial gymnastics.

Well, most lawyers anyway.

In his mind, he should be able to collect the evidence, catch the bad guys, and lock them up. Simple, clean, efficient.

It isn't that simple though.

Evidence is lost and tampered with, the bad guys have money and fancy lawyers, and locking them up is halfway to impossible.

Meanwhile, Madge is bottling everything up, pushing every painful emotion down to her core and plowing through work. It's her coping mechanism, Gale knows that, but he still wishes there was more for him to do to help her.

She isn't falling apart, she's been through too much in her life to do that, but the careful seams she's stitched into her being are frayed and loose. Little bits of her fear and panic are managing to leak out despite all her hard work.

In the weeks since the shooting, she's stayed with Gale.

There'd been so little fight in her against it, almost no protests that he was being ridiculous, that Gale instantly knew she needed him around, even if she wouldn't say as much.

Most nights she can't sleep.

She stays up later and later, pouring over case files, looking at evidence, searching for any little thing she might've missed the first hundred times she'd looked, until Gale makes her go to bed.

"I'm just not tired," she always tells him, getting up to give him a hug, trying to hide the dark circles growing under her eyes. There are too many demons living in her mind to rest.

He tells her about his day, stupid things he hears, dirty jokes, an update on the cat that lives behind the station house, anything to calm her down and get her to sleep. She never stays that way though.

Some nights he wakes to find her whimpering, curled into a ball, tears leaking out her eyes. Other nights she wakes up screaming, panic in her eyes as she looks around for a phantom shooter.

All he can do is hold her, rub little circles on her back and hum her the lullabies his mother had sung him when he'd been little and afraid, until her sobs quiet and her breathing evens out.

It turns his stomach that one person could turn a lunch into a bloodbath and Madge's mind into a place she's too terrified to let rest.

He wants to put that person away for the rest of their natural life, but that power isn't his at the moment.

"She'll make the ID," the dark haired woman beside him says, green eyes narrowed on the door.

Annie Cresta, an ADA a few years older than Madge, watches the door across from them, waiting for her witness to come out.

She's pretty, but intense. Madge had told him that she'd been a defense attorney for a while before being recruited by Mags Cohen, the DA before Abernathy, after one of her colleagues was murdered in front of her by a client.

"It really traumatized her," she'd added. "Almost left law altogether, before Mags talked her out of it."

She'd been part of the team that had dismantled several of Snow's sex slave rings, one of his most lucrative and secret projects.

Finnick Odair, one of the more popular young men in Snow's inventory to be used and abused, had been the key component in the takedown.

"He went to the police after he'd been brought a new 'recruit' to break in," Madge explained. "A twelve year old girl."

Odair, despite what he'd been through, still had a conscience. He'd been horrified at what he was being asked to do, and helped the girl escape before going to the police and divulging every dirty detail he knew. Not that it saved her.

That same twelve year old, who'd only been trying to help her family pay off their debts to one of Snow's low level lackeys, had been Madge's first case.

"People aren't property," Gale remembers Annie saying during the trial, "and anyone that treats them like they are deserves to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."

Snow had been too slippery, slithering his way out of being implicated in the twisted dealings of his human trade by having too many people afraid to cross him and point fingers, but Annie had gone after every other name on the list of clients she could find. There are fewer open cells in the penitentiary because of her.

Madge and Annie had met at that time, traded notes on Snow, and eventually come to share a mutual desire to see him burn for all the lives he's ruined.

Odair hadn't been able to implicate Snow directly, but he did name names, and that put cracks in the infrastructure of his world. The fewer wealthy people of power he had in his pocket, the more vulnerable he became. Despite the girl's death, Odair's willingness to speak up had led to the downfall of at least a fraction of Snow's empire, and it should have cost him his life.

The only reason Odair is still alive, that Gale can figure out anyways, is that Snow sees a use for him in the future, a sentiment Madge agrees with.

"I've told Annie, and she's managed to get plainclothes officers on him while he's down at the shelter helping out," Madge told him, her expression still deeply worried. "If anything every happens to him, Snow won't get a trial if Annie has anything to say about it."

If the hardened look on Annie's face as she watches the door to the lineup is any indication, Gale thinks Madge has her friend's bloodthirstiness pegged pretty well.

The door finally opens and the witness, a red-headed woman with a sly face, is escorted out by Thresh.

Gale feels a cool hand wrap around his, and when he looks over, he finds Madge, grim faced and silent, waiting for any signal that the witness has given a positive ID.

Thresh meets Gale's eyes as he places his hand on the red-head's shoulder, guiding her out, and gives him the smallest smile.

They got her.

Madge doesn't see Thresh's signal though, she's too preoccupied with staring at the door, waiting for Paylor to come out.

Carefully, he untwines his hand from hers and wraps it around her shoulder, pulling her to him.

"She picked our girl," he whispers.

He presses a kiss into her hair and takes a deep breath as he feels the tension melt out of her bones.

The woman that had shot Abernathy is off the streets. It's nothing short of a miracle.

Annie's lips curl up and she nods.

"I knew she'd do it." Annie gives Madge and Gale a grin. "If we could just connect her to Snow it would be perfect."

Gale nods. "Yeah, but I'll take what I can get for the moment."

And if all he can get is the woman that shot Madge's mentor behind bars, he'll be happy.

Paylor comes out of the room, a triumphant expression on her face.

She crosses over to them and Madge starts to pull back, but Gale keeps her anchored to him. Paylor or no Paylor, he isn't letting her go when she's just had to go through such an emotionally exhausting day.

"Why don't you take the afternoon off," she tells him. "Take Madge and get something other than take out to eat."

"Oh," Madge shakes her head, "Chief, I'm going with Annie to work on-"

"You're going to eat," Annie cuts her off. "I'm meeting with Finnick for lunch. We've earned a break, even just for an afternoon."

Despite barely knowing her, Gale finds himself liking Annie. She has her priorities straight.

Madge finally wiggles away, chewing her lip. "Annie, don't you think-"

"I think a lot, and what I think is we should take an afternoon to ourselves." She closes her eyes. "If there's one thing Haymitch's shooting has taught me, it's that we need to remember we aren't guaranteed a tomorrow. Work can wait for the morning."

She crosses her arms and raises her chin a fraction, daring Madge to argue, but none comes. All she manages is a weak smile.

"Fine," she finally says. "Tomorrow we get to work though."

A bright smile ticks at the edges of Annie's lips. "Sounds good."

After half an hour of finishing up a small amount of paperwork, and letting Katniss know he's taking off for the day, Gale leaves the station with Madge's hand firmly locked in his and wary eyes on every face they passed.

They end up at the grimy little cafe a few blocks away, sitting across from each other in a booth, the broken plastic of the seats cutting into their legs.

It probably isn't what Paylor had in mind, but the food isn't being eaten out of Styrofoam containers and they aren't using plastic silverware, so it's a definite improvement.

The burgers are greasy and the music playing in the background is whining, but they're out in public, not hiding away in Gale's apartment or hold up in her office. It's a small moment of normalcy and he'll take it.

Madge picks at her food, another trait she's acquired since the shooting.

"I'm just not hungry," she's told him time after time.

"I heard your stomach from across the room," he'd grumbled, more than a few times before shoving something microwaved and greasy at her. "Just eat your damn burrito."

His mother would be appalled at the amount of precooked meals he's ingested since the shooting, but he can't worry about that. There just isn't time for making real food.

He can already hear her reply to that.

"Well then you should come home a little more often and eat with your family."

He's actually considered taking Madge over to his mother's for a real family meal several times, but stops himself. Not only does he want to explain that he's suddenly living with a girl that only a few months ago he was complaining to her about, but he isn't sure Madge is up to the level of grilling his mother is likely to subject her to.

No cop alive has the interrogation skills his mother has, Gale is certain of it.

Besides, his brothers would be there too, and Madge has suffered enough already.

Picking up a one of his fries, Gale dips it in the ketchup and holds it out to Madge. "Stop playing with your food and eat. You're wasting my hard earned cash here."

A little smile twitches on her lips, breaking her somber expression a little.

"Yes, dad."

Gale leans in, across the table. "Save that for the bedroom."

Madge snorts into her fries. "Ew."

He shrugs, sitting back and popping the fry into his mouth.

It was a bit crude, but it got her to laugh, and that's not an easy accomplishment these days.

For a minute it's almost like they're on a real date, flirting and acting like normal people instead of a detective and an ADA tied down by one of the most elaborate and volatile cases in the past seventy-five years.

But they aren't. They haven't even officially been on a real date. She's living with him, even if just temporarily, and they haven't even been out to the movies together, haven't gone to a fancy restaurant, haven't even discussed what their relationship is yet.

They're doing everything backwards, but that doesn't seem to matter. Gale feels closer to her than he has any girl he's taken the traditional route of dating with, so maybe they were always meant to be a little unconventional.

Just as quickly as it had come, the laughter dies from Madge's lips and she's back to poking at her food.

"Do you think we'll be able to connect her to Snow?"

Gale shrugs. "Hopefully."

Madge nods, sinking back into her seat. "Hopefully." She rubs her hand over her face, pressing her fingers to the bridge of her nose. "What if we don't though?"

He doesn't answer, just lets the chatter of the cook and the waitress tossing around short orders and the sound of the grill sizzling fill the silence.

She already knows what happens if they don't connect Crystalle Otto to Snow.

Abernathy wasn't killed this time, and they even caught the shooter, but next time Snow might not be so sloppy, next time Abernathy might not walk away.

There's a little hope in the whole mess though.

This attempt was an aberration, a crack in Snow's otherwise flawless veneer. He's letting his emotions get the better of him and he's making mistakes. His network of killers and flunkies is drying up as his empire crumbles around him.

They're winning, and Snow knows it. That makes him dangerous, but it also makes him stupid.

"He's making mistakes, Madge," Gale reassures her, reaching across and stilling her hands as they shred a paper napkin. "Even if we can't connect Otto to him, he's making mistakes and he's going to make more."

They have him against the ropes and that's what they need to remember.

Another small smile flicks up at the edges of Madge's mouth. "Thanks."

Gale frowns. "For what?"

She turns her hand over and gives his a squeeze. "For cheering me up."

He huffs, smiling a little. "Yeah, I'm a regular ray of sunshine."

Madge snorts again. "You certainly are."

Pushing his almost empty plate away, Gale scoots out of the booth and stretches before offering Madge a hand. "Let's go home."

He's gotten half a real meal down her and Abernathy's shooter is locked away, at least for now. It's been a good day and he can only hope that means they'll have a good night.

Madge winds an arm around his middle and he wraps his around her shoulder and steers her out and to the street.

Maybe they're not a regular couple. They go to trial as instead of movies and eat cheap take out instead of going to a real restaurant, but it works for them. They understand each other better than some couples, so it must be okay.

"Wanna watch a movie?" He asks as they make their way back to the station and his car.

She shrugs against him. "What movie?"

Gale doesn't care. Anything that isn't the news and a rehashing of the shooting, Snow, and all the misery around them, is fine by him.

Before she can even make a suggestion though, a wide yawn finds its way out and she gives him a sheepish smile.

"I don't know if I'll make it through a movie."

Giving her a quick kiss, Gale speeds up.

A celebratory nap, after all the sleeplessness the search for Abernathy's shooter has caused, sounds just fine to him.

"Well, I'm never going to argue against more time in bed with you, even if it's just to sleep."

Madge laughs, and it's music to his ears.


End file.
